He Called me Baby
by ebthor
Summary: The night before they said goodbye at the airport in The Beginning in the End. Inspired by the song playing in the background during the final scene.
1. He called me baby

**Author's Note**: The song playing in the background at the airport sounded like Candi Stanton's _He Called me Baby_. This is what happened when I thought about that song.

* * *

Drawn almost magnetically, she lifted her gaze and saw him. Broad and strong and staring at her with melted-chocolate eyes.

She crossed the concourse and stood near him, breathing in his scent, feeling the warmth of his body. She shifted as he began speaking, trying to suppress the urge to fling herself into his arms.

His hand folded around hers, that hard ridge of callus rough against her own fingers.

She nearly melted.

_He called me baby_, she recalled.

* * *

They tried to be normal; they'd done the post-case paperwork in her office and had fries and coffee at the diner afterwards. But everything had been stiff, stilted, buried beneath the weight of everything they weren't saying.

When he was walking her to her car, his hand in its place at the small of her back, she realized that was it. That spot? On her back? It was HIS place. He'd rested his hand there so often, gently guiding, forcefully propelling, or softly stroking. Other men had tried to do the same, of course, ushering her through crowded rooms or walking next to her, but she had shrugged them off. Their touch was wrong, would always be wrong. Only Booth's hand belonged on her back.

That spot was his.

She stopped to face him.

"What is it, Bones?" he asked, his hand sliding around to clasp her waist.

"Why do you touch my back?"

"What?" he was thoroughly baffled.

"You always have your hand on the small of my back. Males typically do that to assert dominance or establish to other men that the female is taken or to provide protection."

"Sometimes they do it just because they like to touch."

She let out a shaky breath. "Is that why you do it?"

"Most of the time."

"You're the only one I let do that. Other men, their hands feel wrong. But you…feel…right. It's like when you hug me, we fit and it's not awkward or uncomfortable like it is with other men. You're just…right. And intellectually, too. Like puzzle pieces, we're not the same, but…"

She was interrupted by his mouth closing over hers, his hands pulling her closer to him, arms sliding around her. The kiss was gentle at first but took only seconds to ignite. Her arms wound around his neck and she rose on tiptoe to align their bodies.

They broke apart, breath coming in gasps. He tried to kiss her again, but she dodged him. "No, no, I need to finish this." She kept her arms around his neck, though, which warmed his heart. So different from the last time he kissed her and she'd shoved him away.

"I was wrong. I didn't believe in love, didn't believe it could last or be more than a transient emotion spurred by chemical interactions in the brain. But I was wrong. You taught me, showed me the truth. It's real. And I love you."

He laughed joyously, clasping her to his chest, and when the laughter died, they kissed again, scorching each other.

"Bones," he whispered, leaning his forehead against hers, "you have the damnedest timing."

"I know. But we have tonight at least."

"Then why are we wasting it out here on the sidewalk?"

They ran, laughing, the rest of the way to her car. She let him drive without a fight, content to hold his hand and watch his profile.

They tumbled into her apartment, shedding clothing willy-nilly, kisses mingled with laughter until he scooped her into his arms and strode into her bedroom.

They spent the night awake, making love and talking and simply touching each other in the moonlight.

He called her baby and she let him.

And in the morning, she dressed for traveling while he watched. She looked at him, sprawled unselfconsciously on her bed and surreptitiously wiped a tear.

He noticed, of course, damn him.

"What is it, baby?" he asked, coming to stand by her, easing her against him with his hand in its spot.

"One year," she whispered, tears coming faster now.

"One year," he replied, catching a tear with his thumb before kissing her.

"Booth," she whispered, "at the airport?"

"Yes?" he replied.

"Please don't hug me or kiss me. I won't be able to get on the plane if you do."

He smiled at that. "We'll say our goodbyes right here, then."

* * *

Drawn almost magnetically, she lifted her gaze and saw him. Broad and strong and staring at her with melted-chocolate eyes.

He didn't hold her or kiss her, and it nearly killed him. But he clasped her hand tightly and fought tears.

"One year from today," he reminded her.

"One year from today."


	2. Love letters

**Author's Note: **The song that inspired the first chapter was actually Kandi by One eskimO. Thank you, Gina Odegaard, for letting me know!

* * *

They wrote letters. Between the time difference and their activities, phone calls were challenging. They sent emails, of course, but there was something right about sending letters, about taking the time to sit down with a pen and paper and record their thoughts, and something fabulous about having a tangible item that was in the other's hands not that long ago.

He stretched out in his bunk with a legal pad and cheap Bic, imagining her in her eco-warrior gear in a tent reading his words as he wrote her about his daily life (what he could share, anyway), about how Parker was doing, and how he missed her, ached for her, loved her.

She sat cross-legged on her cot with the pretty scented stationery Angela sent from Paris and wrote in her tidy script about the finds, how Daisy was maturing and becoming a reliable member of the dig team, and how she missed him, ached for him, loved him.

He hoarded her letters, catching whiffs of sweet perfume as he opened them, smiling when she tucked in the occasional picture, her hair longer and in need of a trim, her body lean and tanned, her eyes bright and warm as she smiled.

She waited eagerly for the mail, ran her sensitive fingers over his bold scrawl, touched the closing of the letters, always the same. _Yours, always._

He feared that with time and distance, she would rationalize and rethink and stop loving him, return to her belief that love was nothing more than chemicals.

She learned that with time and distance she grew more sure of herself. Even without the daily presence of his symmetrical features and hard body (_oh, that body_) to stimulate chemical reactions in her brain, she loved him. Rather than fleeting ephemeral feelings, her love settled deeper, becoming even more a part of her. She wondered why she had suppressed her feelings and missed out on the feeling of bone-deep rightness that came with loving him.

He grinned at the opening words of her letters, always the same, always telling him that his fear of her not loving him was unfounded. _My Beloved_.

She tied the ones he sent her up with a pretty length of ribbon and kept them tucked neatly in the suitcase she used as a nightstand, pulling them out and rereading them when she missed him most.

He kept hers in his footlocker and ran a hand over them every morning when he reached for fresh socks, picking one at random every day to carry with him inside his uniform, against his heart.

They wrote letters. Love letters.


	3. I Touch the Place where I'd Find your Fa

**Author's Note**: Chapter title from Snow Patrol's song _Set Fire to the Third Bar_.

* * *

Booth stared at the map in front him, tracing the Indonesian archipelago where Bones was with a finger.

He heaved a sigh. The tropics sounded better than the hellhole he was currently in; he had forgotten how much he hated Afghanistan, but the memories had come rushing back pretty damned quickly. He hated it. The cold, the barrenness, the terrorists. Plus, Army food, Army accommodations, Army duties. Nothing but shit he didn't like.

Yeah, Maluku sounded far better than where he was right now. Warm, sandy beaches, the tangy scent of the tropics wafting on the ocean breeze, scuba diving in coral reefs, and Bones. Mostly Bones.

Bones.

He sighed again.

"Jesus, Sarge," the other man in the room bit out. "You need to stop mooning around like a lovesick puppy."

Booth's head snapped up. "I beg your pardon?" his voice was dangerously, silkily smooth.

"I get it, you left your girl behind and you miss her, but if you whimper about her one more time, you'll drive me crazy."

"I am not whimpering."

The other man rolled his eyes and pinned Booth with a sardonic glare.

"Sighing, maybe," Booth admitted, "but I don't whimper."

"She special?"

"Yeah, Davis, she's special."

"Blonde, leggy, lawyer?" Davis asked, knowing Booth's type from another time.

"Brunette, curvy, forensic anthropologist."

"That's not your normal type."

"Hell, Davis, I took one look at her and forgot all about my normal type."

Davis grinned. "Got a picture?"

Booth pulled a photo of Brennan out of his pocket. It was one she'd sent him from her dig, where she was tan and lean and smiling, her eyes outshining the blue ocean behind her. Davis whistled.

"I can see why that one blew all the other ones out of the water."

* * *

That evening, over a couple of drinks, they resumed their conversation.

"Wait, wait, wait, you're telling me you two only had one night together? One night? And you're this crazy about her?"

"It was five years of foreplay, Davis. And I was this crazy about her before we went to bed together."

"Then why the five years?"

"I was an idiot, then she was an idiot, and then we were both idiots. It took five years and the two of us heading to opposite corners of the globe before we managed to stop being idiots."

"At least you got there, man. That's more than some people get."

"Yeah, it is. And in 5 months, 22 days, I get it back."


	4. Nothing but your Tshirt on

**Author's Note**: Chapter title from Shontelle's song _T-shirt_.

* * *

"Dr. Brennan?" Daisy asked, watching as Brennan shuffled her paperwork into a tidy pile, signifying the end of her workday.

"Yes, Ms. Wick?"

"Do you ever miss Agent Booth?"

Not as startled by the question as she might otherwise be, given that Ms. Wick and Sweets had made up and Ms. Wick had been heaving sighs and staring mournfully into the sunset, Brennan responded easily.

"Of course."

"I don't mean missing him like missing bubble baths and sheets without sand in them, I mean missing him so much it is painful."

"In that spot in your chest, like it's emptier than it should be? Or the way you turn to tell him something interesting or exciting or to share a joke or to ask an opinion and you notice the spot next to you, his spot, is empty and it feels like your heart is being crushed?"

"Exactly," Daisy replied, he eyes shining with tears.

"Of course," Brennan repeated.

The two women sat in companionable silence for a moment, letting their heartache fade a little, the burden lighter for having been shared.

"I have this little teddy bear from Lance. He won it for me at a carnival on one of our first dates. I know it's juvenile, but I keep it on my cot," Daisy admitted.

"I sleep in one of Booth's t-shirts," Brennan confessed, feeling uncharacteristically talkative. "He left it at my apartment and I never gave it back."

They smiled a little sheepishly at each other. Day slid into evening and they remained in their makeshift office, talking of the dig, their work, and their men.

* * *

When darkness fell and Brennan changed into her pajamas she smoothed her hand over the faded lettering on the shirt and smiled a little foolishly. Comfort. It was no guy-hug, but it was comfort nonetheless.

_Five months and 22 days_, she thought to herself.


End file.
